Fear of Intimacy

My boyfriend of seven months broke up with me out of the blue about three weeks ago. I've discussed the situation with my therapist and I understand now that he has a pretty deep fear of intimacy (child of an alcoholic, distant parents, other signs throughout our relationship). While this is definitely sad and hard to deal with, I also have a lot of questions. I've never felt fear like that and I'd like to understand what's going on for him. Has anyone here struggled with a fear of intimacy? Now that he's pushed me away, is it unlikely he'll come back once the fear subsides? Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

It's hard to guess if he will come back or not, but if he does and you take him back you are setting yourself up for more pain. Fear of intimacy is more like having that flight feeling when you get scared. It makes you want to run the opposite direction as fast as you can. There are a lot of ways this shows up in a person's actions, including having lots of short term romances. It takes a lot of counseling to overcome that fear of intimacy.

I have a fear of intimacy. it is easier for me not to let people into my life than to have people in. I fear rejection too much, that they will not love me if they really know me. that if I do something that displeases them, they will not love me anymore and I will be alone again. therefore it is just easier to be alone than risk being rejected over and over again. so I make it easy on other people and just do not get involved in relationships.

Thank you both for your help. I really appreciate it. He's done some strange things since the breakup (trying to get my attention on facebook, walking by my office when he knows I go to work and then pretending not to see me). I just keep wondering if he'll realize he pushed me away out of fear?

Will he realize that he left out of fear of intimacy? Hard to say. This could be something, if in therapy, he could work through and years down the road, notice a pattern in all of his past relationships.

If he's ignoring you in the office, how is he trying to get your attention on FB?

Sometimes, things may seem to happen, out of the blue, but through my own experiences in life, nothing just seems to happen in a bubble.

Sorry, that message might not have been clear. We don't work together. He went out of his way to walk down the block where my office is and then, when I was there, he seemed to panic and pretend not to notice me. He had no reason to be on that block, right outside my office building. It was weird.

It's mainly that he seems to still be conflicted about the breakup (at the time, he game three disconnected reasons including "We're not fighting but we don't want to wait until we are fighting" and kept saying how hard the decision was) and I'm wondering if he'll realize he acted out of fear or if this kind of realization is beyond him because of his struggles with emotional intimacy?